Scarecrow Stories: The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star
Catalogues were searched, filing cabinets pulled open and shoved shut. The decision was made: rising action over climax, beginning over end. Finding the right mix was difficult; they needed to compliment each other without interlocking; such traits would ensure the potential failure of one would not doom all three. The hunt for the maddened corrupter of tales had begun. The choices were made, their prey not too far. The Stories they took? The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star. They'd heard the rumors of the rogue Minister before. Before Stonefather, before the King lost his princess, before parenthood and politics changed him, they were young Ministers told to follow in his footsteps. He was the benchmark, the standard for success, but now he sought to take the fates he once preserved and rip them apart to sew them back together in a sick attempt to defy the laws they are bound to, the same laws he'd pledged to enforce. Doubt gripped them, but unfurling the scrolls they'd requisitioned they knew those doubts would be gone soon. Mouths speak incantations to change who they are. In place of them stand The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star. The Stories enacted, the Ministers no longer themselves in mind, had set their Roles after their prey. The underdog Boxer went about finding the title match he was owed, the eyes in the Thorns his adoring fans and his quarry the defending champion. The Butcher likewise was ready to sniff out his next target, the valiancy of his actions ever in question. The twisted smile on The Star's face, the crooked dagger in her hand, revealed her true intentions, the death of her "abusive lover" pending her arrival at "home". The three of them are prisoners of their powerful Desires, Fears, and Sorrows, the only thing left unchained: a boiling Wrath in their chests. Inside a Hollow they found him, the front door left ajar. The Ashen King meets The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star. An unheard bell resounds in The Boxer's ear as he entered the ring, the absent crowd echoing his true name. The imagined announcer calls the men to their corners, a fight between the underdog challenger and the undefeated champion. Unfortunately, buried deep behind the mask he wore lay the dormant Minister who called upon his tale, forced to watch his body act out the Role it was assigned. When The Boxer's stare met the King's golden eyes, the Minister knew the Story his Boxer now faced: The Thief of Hearts. The Thief was a character with a dark history to him, his Role a forbidden one. 'How had the King gotten his hands on it?' the Minister mused towards deaf ears, his body no longer in his control releasing a war cry instead. There was something different about The Thief, though. While a monster capable of robbing a man of his very will to live, The Thief worked in shadows; he was hardly made of them as the creature before him was. The three were warned the King planned to reweave the stories he'd stolen, but the man now The Boxer hardly thought it possible. The Thief now resembled the fabled Grim Nightmare, faster than death and ever chasing a world without life. Another forbidden Role. The Boxer leapt towards his opponent, rage beckoning him to end the match by knockout before the end of the first round. Tears streaming from his face as he flew, The Boxer's screams were stifled as, despite all his momentum, The Grim Nightmare outstretched its tendrils and slammed its prey against its two companions. Shadows spreading out from the creature's feet blanketing the Hollow's floor, the three felt the darkness wrapping around their legs. Stuck where they're standing in shadows of tar, Fear grips The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star. Three. The King had stolen three Stories, not two, though this was hardly the concern of The Star. Far past her prime the aged Star stands in what she sees as her kitchen, the frightening monster facing her taking the shape of the horrible man she can't help but love. She Fears him, to be sure, but she holds him in her heart just the same. Neither Fear nor Love quell her Desire to sink her steel into his chest and twist, which is why her Story was chosen. While The Thief robbed the will to fight him from her two companions, no such power exists which could do the same to her. The Minister behind her eyes tried to scream from realisation but had no mouth as The Star's head cocked to one side. The Nightmare and Thief were truly not the only Stories the King had begun to weave, and she finally saw what she was up against. The Poet of Minutes and Hours revealed his part of the King's arcane tapestry. Released from her shadowy bonds The Star walked in a stupor towards him. No amount of pleading from The Butcher or the Minister whose body she controlled could stop her march, her legend-fuelled knife falling to the ground beside her. Her lover stood before her, younger and older at the same time, the man before he wronged her and after he'd redeemed himself. She had dodged The Thief's robbery of Heart, her's already hardened shards in her chest. The Poet was something far more inescapable: Time. Time heals all wounds, which was more than enough to make her old defenses new vulnerabilities. With her Heart no longer calloused it was his for the taking, and he did not daudle in doing so. Looking up from the aging wretch before him, the King in his three forms saw something unexpected. To escape the bonds holding him, the armor-clad Butcher had fought off the theft of his will and cut off his feet at their ankles, his longsword coated with his own blood. Pulling himself across the cavern floor toward the demon before him, The Butcher would not waver from his marque. Shadows dissipated from the room, the dark creature made of three Stories becoming the man who wore them. The Minister inside The Butcher knew in an instant who they should have been Fearing from the beginning: not the forbidden Roles but the man who stitched them together. As The Butcher propped himself up on bleeding stumps, The Minister prayed for the strenght to close the eyes he did not controle. As the King raised his scythe with a glint in his golden eyes, the three Stories in front of him were brought to an abrubt end. Was The Boxer fated to win to lose? Or lose to win? Does it matter whether The Butcher was hero or villain if he never had the chance to be either? As she watched the world end around her, did The Star see her misplaced Hope as bane or boon? Three questions unanswered, they weren't up to par. So turned to ashes The Boxer, The Butcher, The Star. Category:Fiction